


Master Thieves and Private Eyes

by Gaypinetree



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-29 02:34:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13917555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gaypinetree/pseuds/Gaypinetree
Summary: Peter Nureyev and Juno Steel have just saved all of Mars from a genocidal martian with a superweapon. The night before they plan to run away together Juno begins to doubt his intentions, but this time Nureyev is there to help him through it.(aka I hated the season one finale so I went ahead and rewrote it.)





	Master Thieves and Private Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Continuity may be a bit messed up since I haven't listened through the finale in a short bit so please correct me on anything I've remembered wrong.

We had done it, we beat Miasma. We had beat them all.  
We collapse on the cheap hotel bed, dahlias and roses scattering from our skirts and hair, fluttering down to rest on the mattress around us.  
All I did was hold him, eyes clenched shut. Because when I open them all I could see was him beaten in that prison, all I can hear are those last few words whispered through the walls of a martian tomb as I had gone off to die echoing through my mind.  
But I wasn’t dead. I was here gripping him in my arms. Peter Nureyev, the thief without a name, though all I can seem to do was say it.  
“Nureyev, Nureyev I’m so sorry, I thought that I could just-” My voice cuts off, better not to jinx my continued existence.  
“Hush darling I was so enjoying the silence, words are for mornings.” Nureyev’s voice sounds sandpaper rough, he kisses my forehead. “Your alive now.” His voice breaks. “You’re an impossible idiot and you lived and that’s all I care about.”  
He pulls me closer, and all we do is lay enveloped in each others arms as the moon rises on Hyperion City. Silent save for the rhythm of his beating heart against my own. I wish we could have kept it that way.  
“You know Juno, call me a fool, but I think I may have fallen in love with you.” He yawns closing his eyes as mine snapped open.  
He’s asleep, and god he’s beautiful. Even after he’s washed off all the makeup he paints on, underneath he is so softly and subtly beautiful. Just the way his cheek bones tilt and the way his eyelids flutter as he sleeps. His chapped lips and ruffled hair and every other tool this thief used to steal my heart it fills my chest and begins to ache. For a moment I believe I can do this. I could leave with him and go far far away from Mars and everything I’d ever known, and maybe that’s a good thing. My life hadn’t exactly been anything close to pleasant. Not since Ben had died.  
Then I look again and I see the cuts and the bruises and the blood, the scars I’ve caused him. Maybe not directly but I’ve hurt him, and I’ll hurt him again if he stays with me. I’m a private eye, my job is to save people. I have to stay and save Hyperion City and I have to save Peter Nureyev, even if it means hurting myself.  
I get out of bed, careful not to bother him too much, scared of waking him. I can’t even look at him again, because as soon as I do I know I’ll get right back into that bed and then fly off into the stars with him tomorrow and I’ll believe that I’m happy or that this will make me happy or that he will be my happiness. But if I’m real with myself I knew that that future is all just a dream.  
I’ve learned something as a private eye. Everyone thinks they’ve got the answer, that silver laser that promises they’ll be happy forever, but no one’s ever been happy forever. All those people chasing after all those promises running full tilt towards a thousand paradises that never were and are never going to be Steel no matter how bad you want it. It’s all just going to end in a big mess.  
I stand in the doorway. My rosey gown seeming melancholy now. I imagine it hanging next to the wedding gown in my closet, collecting dust and it almost seems fitting.  
“Juno” I hear him mumble my name and I tell myself he’s dreaming. I hope it’s a good dream, one where he won’t wake up to an empty bed. One where we travel the world, where I am the kind of person he deserves. Then I hear it again.  
“Juno” and it’s crystal clear, no sleepiness muffling the concern. I can practically feel his eyes on my back.  
“Nureyev it’s okay, just go back to sleep.” But he’s all ready up and coming towards me and wrapping me up in those arms that are so warm and feel like some arbitrary meaning of home-  
And I start crying.  
“I can’t , I just- I can’t Nureyev I’m sorry I can’t leave. I can’t leave Benzai-” I’m choking on my words, my fists balling up against his chest.  
“Hush love. I told you words are for the morning.” He didn’t do anything more than hold me and for the time it was much to much. I push away from him shouting and sobbing and god how crazy I have to look.  
“But I can leave. I can’t go with you Nureyev. I love you-” Sobs wrack my body. “God I love you, but I look at you and all I see is how I’ve hurt you-”  
“Oh Juno, you’ve done anything but hurt me, so please just stay. For the night no promises or commitments. You don’t have to go anywhere. Just let me see you tonight and we can talk in the morning when you’re rested. If you decide I’m not everything you could ever want you can leave, and I shan’t bother you again.” He looks so calm a mask made of glass he wore when I first met him.   
I nod and breathe heavy breaths and let him lead me back to bed. I curl into a ball on the mattress and close my eyes watching colors dance against my eyelids. I feel him cover me in a blanket but never feel his arms envelope me again before I drift off into uneasy sleep.  
I dream about Benzaiten. I watch him die over and over again, but not in the slums of Hyperion City. Oh no my mind is much more cruel. I watch my brother die in a prison inside a martian tomb alongside Peter Nureyev. I watch my mother and Miasma pull the trigger again and again for what feels like an infinity and it’s all my fault.  
It’s all my fault.  
And then it’s over, the early morning light of the domes hits my eyes and I’m still laying on the cheap mattress in the hotel I came to with Peter Nureyev. He’s sitting on the opposite side of the bed buttoning up a white dress shirt. I don’t say anything, I just lay and think about my dreams until he notices me.  
“Ah you’re awake.” His voice sounds filled with regret almost.  
“Where the heck did you get another outfit?” I grumble. He chuckles.  
“A magician never reveals his secrets Juno.”  
“Pfft- Yeah like their name, Peter Nureyev.”   
He laughs, and it melts any uneasiness and it feels like we’ve had a million mornings like this. I remember that I could have an infinity of mornings like this if I only chose to, but that thought is quickly dismissed as the image of my brother lying dead in a pool of his own blood floods my mind again.  
He hands me a stack of folded clothes and as I unfold them I realize they are my clothes. LIke he picked them straight from my apartment.  
“What did you rob my house?”  
“Juno dear I told you its all magic” He says with a flourish of his hands. I chuckle, sighing at the feeling of cotton on my skin after hours of the scratchy lace of the gown. God changing into that gown feels like years ago, how could it have only been yesterday? How could it have been only yesterday that Peter Nureyev had slunk back into my life.  
“What do you see in this city.” He asks. He’s not facing me, instead gazing out the window down into some unnamed alley. So this was it.  
“Not much. It’s a filthy city full of crooks.” I say busying myself with my belt buckle in hopes of further escaping his eyes.  
“Then why stay, why choose all this trash... over me.”  
“Because once upon a time I knew someone who thought the world of this city.”  
“Ben” He says it quietly, not as a question but just as something he has always known to be true.  
“He was family, and he kept on believing in dumb old Hyperion City until it got him killed. And if this city can kill angels then there’s no hope for me, but I maybe can bring some devil’s down with me. I can save the angels of Hyperion City, then they can save this city when I’m dead. Like Ben was supposed to.” Nureyev turns and looks at me with such a serious, mournful face I wonder how I hurt him this time.  
“Juno have you ever heard of a city called Brahma?”   
I shook my head.  
“It’s in a small dome far far away from here, right underneath the floating city of New Kinshasa. There was once a boy who lived in Brahma and all his life he was told epic stories of his childhood in New Kinshasa and how his father had fought the tyranny of the floating city and how that job had now been passed down to the boy since his father had been killed. The boy went bravely forward in his quest, only to find his picturesque ideals of the floating city were all lies. He had no hero father and no noble quest. Someone had simply tried to trick the boy into killing a city full of regular citizens with no reasons to be loathed, and although the boy was able to save New Kinshasa he died that day.” Nureyev stopped tears in his eyes he took a deep breath and chuckled.  
“Oh look at me being dramatic. The boy didn’t die but rather left behind any semblance of who he was, for it had all been a lie anyway. Not before a villain could staple on one last connotation to his name though. The boy came to be known as the angel of Brahma and though everyone else believes him dead here I stand in his place. But I am not so noble as you Juno Steel. I have not avenged the boy I used to be, I simply use his face to steal and cheat. No matter what you say you are a hero Juno Steel, and I love you for that, but I cannot be a hero with you.” Tears flow down his cheeks now, though he smiles at me with pure admiration.  
“For whatever it counts your every bit my hero Peter.” I walk up to him and cup his cheek before kissing him lightly.  
“I haven’t been Peter in a long time.” He laughs whipping tears from his eyes. “I like it.”  
“So you’re leaving after all?” I asked.  
“Oh don’t fret my dear private eye I have a feeling that we won’t be able to stay apart for too long.” He winked at me, taking my hand and kissing it. “We will be together again Juno Steel and you will have forever stolen this thief’s heart.”


End file.
